


Hope Springs Eternal

by shootingstarcipher



Category: Eerie Indiana
Genre: Aged-Up Characters, Angst, Dash X theory, Dash is 18, M/M, Marshall is 17, Romance, Supernatural - Freeform, alcohol use, possible self-harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 17:02:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13194600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingstarcipher/pseuds/shootingstarcipher
Summary: After a body no-one is able to identify is discovered beneath the rubble of the old Hitchcock Mill following what Marshall and Simon suspect is an arson attack, their investigation becomes increasingly disturbing when the body apparently vanishes into thin air and re-appears a day later, alive but not necessarily well, stealing from the World o’ Stuff.





	Hope Springs Eternal

Several shades darker than usual, the sky above the town of Eerie seemed much thicker too, ominously so, as if threatening to choke them on its wispy grey smoke if they should dare to even glance up in its direction no matter how fleetingly. Simon coughed first; then Marshall. They shared a look and carried on, mentally noting the gradual descent from blissful ignorance to uniformed confusion and finally, as they reached the outskirts of the town, to utter chaos.

The air, too, became smokier and denser as they travelled from the innermost of the city to the suburbs, where the crowds of panicked civilians and marginally heroic but primarily bemused (and a little annoyed by the interruption of what could be assumed to have been a fairly peaceful Sunday afternoon until then) authorities piqued Marshall’s interest and he automatically gravitated towards them and, more importantly, the source of all the chaos. Simon chased after him as he always did, struggling to keep him within his sights and panicking whenever they were separated, even if only for a fraction of a second.

Because, in the grand scheme of things, Simon Holmes had no-one else. He had a family, of course, which consisted of a mother and father who were always so busy arguing with each other that they never noticed when he snuck out of the house to investigate paranormal goings-on and combatting the monsters responsible for such happenings with Marshall (who they had no idea even existed) and a younger sibling who took up all of the time and energy his parents had to be anything less than argumentative. So for a long time it had been just Simon, all on his own, and now it was Simon and Marshall. Junior Do-Gooders. A teenaged neighbourhood watch.

When he finally caught up with Marshall again, at the front of the crowd, he linked arms with him and from then on stuck to him like glue, horrified at the idea of anyone coming between them. As always, however, Marshall was more focused on getting to the source of the commotion than whether his friend was beside him or not. If there was chaos, there was probably something for Evidence Locker close by.

The broken-down building (or at least what was left of it) was familiar. He'd been planning on visiting it himself, with Simon of course, since he’d overheard rumours of its haunted nature, with the hopes of not only catching a glimpse of the alleged spirit of the so-called Grungy Bill (supposed worst robber in all of Eerie) but also assisting the ghost in passing over and laying his tortured soul to rest.

So when he caught sight of the dying flames exuding from the building as they were extinguished by the fire services, it was not too much of a leap for him to suspect that either a) the ghost of Grungy Bill had torched the mill himself, possibly in a bid to secure his place in history or b) that someone else had set fire to it in attempt to get rid of the spirit that resided there. Marshall wasn’t sure that fire could destroy a ghost, primarily for the reason that ghosts were already dead and therefore could not be killed, but he was sure that someone must have really wanted it gone if they would go as far as committing arson to try and get rid of it.

For one fleeting moment, Simon suspected that it may not have been arson at all, but the Marshall voiced his concerns that it was an abnormally coincidental occurrence for the old Hitchcock Mill to burn down right before they were going to go snooping about in it, and right after they’d heard of the legend of Grungy Bill.

They were about to discuss this further when they (along with the rest of the crowd) were ordered to back away from the collapsed mill and pushed aside by a couple of police officers while another inspected the now-extinguished remains of the building. Sharing a frantic glance, they hurried to the back of the crowd – afraid of getting trampled – and waited for the rest to begin breaking away from the flock like poorly herded sheep. It took a while for anyone to lose interest and even after half an hour, tens of people were still gathered round and awaiting news from the officers with baited breath – Marshall and Simon included.

Eventually, the two of them managed to slink their way in between the various other civilians and return to their spot at the front of the crowd, just close enough to catch sight of what had attracted the interest of the police officers (who were, unbelievably, still convinced that the fire had not been set deliberately).

Someone in uniform was crouching close to the ground, bent over a body that looked nearly impossible for anyone to recognise. Delicate, almost translucent grey hair protruded from the corpse’s head, most of which had been charred by the relentlessly violent flames, and beyond that, nothing was known. He seemed to be short for an elderly man as his hair colour implied or, as Marshall suggested, a relatively tall teenaged boy who happened to have greyish hair (but for what reason, Simon pointed out, would someone their own age possess such an odd characteristic?).

The stench of burnt flesh was seeping through into their senses like blood soaking skin, overpowering the previous odour of smoke and ash and dying embers. Marshall glanced at Simon, concerned, because he always saw him as someone who needed to be protected from sights such as a singed cadaver – or any kind of cadaver really. Simon was certainly loyal – there was no arguing about that – but sometimes Marshall thought he put himself in danger as a result of that loyalty when there was really no need.

“Come on, Simon. Let’s get out of here.” He spoke quietly but with authority – authority that Simon immediately recognised and followed after him with only a quick, approving nod of the head.

What they had seen that afternoon remained a secret shared only between the two of them, even when Syndi started to chatter on about the fire during dinner later than evening. Simon found it hard to keep quiet, with Marshall resorting to kicking him under the table every time he saw the younger boy open his mouth during that particular conversation. While Simon saw her as relatively trustworthy, Marshall completely disbelieved in his sister’s ability to keep her mouth shut when it came to things as important as he suspected the corpse found in the burnt-down old mill may well have been, and he had absolutely no intention of letting anyone jeopardise his and Simon’s chances of uncovering what could have proven to be one of the greatest mysteries ever to be solved in Eerie.

“So you hadn’t heard about what happened until now?” She gawked at her brother in disbelief when he replied with “what happened?” and rolled her eyes at his apparent stupidity and forgetfulness as she clarified, “The fire, dummy, at the old Hitchcock Mill – you know, what we’ve been talking about for the last ten minutes.”

Then it was Simon’s turn to kick Marshall under the table, eyeing him worriedly and urging him to respond with a more intelligent answer than he did in fact give, which was a very vague and half-hearted, “Oh, that… yeah, I knew about it.”

“But you didn’t go and see what it was all about?” Syndi questioned, continuing her rather uncomfortable interrogation which finally caught the attention of her parents and raised their eyebrows. “I’m just saying,” she added after a moment’s pause. “I thought it’d be right up your street. It seems like you two” – her gaze flickered towards Simon and then immediately back to her brother – “would have been all over it. Weird that you didn’t go… That’s all I’m saying.”

Bringing her interrogation to an end, she glanced at the two of them once more before putting down her glass and leaning back in her chair, apparently impressed with how much pressure she’d put her brother under. After that, no-one said anything until Mrs Teller began to clear the table and Marshall immediately jumped up and announced that he was going to bed early.

Simon stayed over that night, which was not at all out of the ordinary considering how easy it was for him obtain permission from his own parents, who never seemed to want him around. Mr and Mrs Teller had always been much more welcoming and accepting. Sometimes he even wondered if he could leave his own family altogether and move in with Marshall, but the last thing he wanted to do was take advantage of the Tellers’ kindness. Because that’s what he was sure it was: kindness. Not real affection or empathy. They were being kind to him because they pitied him. Smothering them by always being around was a sure-fire way to kill any sympathy they felt for him, so he made sure he was careful not to outstay his welcome.

He slept on the floor beside Marshall’s bed. That was always how the night started, anyway, with them muttering to one another until eventually drifting off into peaceful sleeps where they dreamed of all the mysteries they’d solved, the strange sights they’d bore witness to and all the adventures they’d been on together… Until Simon would awake with a start, haunted by some unknown thought in the back of his mind – a feeling he could never quite grasp hold of, like a memory he could only remember forgetting – and after that he’d be unable to get back to sleep until he curled up at the bottom of the bed and sank his face into the duvet, finding comfort and solace in the knowledge that Marshall was right there beside him.

But, that night, Marshall’s dreams were anything but peaceful.

He dreamed of the fire at the old mill, of smouldering flames that scorched anything it touched, of burning flesh and rotten corpses just like the one he’d seen that afternoon. If he’d been awake, he would have wondered how Simon was coping with it. But as he wasn’t, he stayed trapped in a nightmare that felt all too real and all too familiar, where a grey-haired corpse stood up from the ground – charred and mangled but somehow walking – and flicked a match in his direction, burning him the moment it touched his skin.

He'd always thought that burning would be the worst way to die and in his dream it really was, but when he awoke the next morning he consoled himself in the knowledge that whoever it was, that person who had died inside the mill would probably have already been dead by the time the flames reached him and died from smoke inhalation instead. He hoped so, anyway, and he told Simon the same thing.

And if his dreams hadn’t been disturbing enough, what happened to him after Simon had gone home was enough to make him start to wonder if he was coping at all with what he’d seen the day before, or if he was losing his mind over it instead.

The World o’ Stuff was a place Marshall considered to practically be his second home. It was where he and Simon went to get away from all the weirdness of Eerie and simply be normal teenagers for an hour or two if they felt it necessary (which they often did). He rarely went there on his own but Simon was trying to become more independent and he appreciated that sometimes, they both needed time away from each other, so he sat there alone and silent, a warm mug sandwiched between his hands as he tried to focus on anything that wasn’t even remotely related to the fire or the old mill.

If it wasn’t for Mr Radford yelling something unintelligible Marshall would have likely never questioned his sanity, but because he did and because that gruff yell drew his attention to the teenaged boy darting out of the door with a stolen newspaper in his hand that for a moment he seemed to lose all control and – despite his mind telling him to simply carry on sipping his drink and to ignore everything else around him for the time being – he found himself sprinting after him, an inexplicable sense of desperation taking over him until he finally caught up to the stranger and suddenly understood why.

Before him was a grubby looking boy about his own age – seventeen or eighteen, maybe – with pale skin, a bloodied red shirt and fragile, off-white hair that set alarm bells ringing in his mind.

He must have looked as horrified as he felt because when the boy finally looked up at him and acknowledge his presence – until then he’d been entirely focused on the front page of the stolen newspaper, which declared that an accidental fire at Hitchcock Mill had killed an unidentified citizen – he gazed at him ruefully and grunted, “Yeah, I know. I’m supposed to be dead.”

The calmness in his voice was alarming, but what was even more so was the precise meaning behind his words. He was supposed to be dead. And yet, there he was, clearly still living and breathing but with air of eeriness surrounding him – the kind that could only be elicited from someone who was, for all intents and purposes, deceased. The expression on his face, though predominantly unreadable, was exactly what Marshall would imagine the appropriate expression for that particular scenario to be. Confusion, despair, a certain sense of horror that nothing else he could think of could match.

“It’s probably just a twin you didn’t know about or something,” he shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “I mean, you’re obviously not dead.” He laughed nervously.   
The grey-haired boy nodded solemnly but didn’t seem to agree with him completely. “Yeah, but…” He trailed off and looked thoughtfully, scanning the article in a few short seconds for any information that may have been useful. “But I don’t remember anything.”

Inspire by the spark of human decency that so often guided his actions, Marshall automatically offered to do his best to help him (and he was sure Simon would agree that this was the right thing to do) recover his lost memories, and by way of formally introducing himself gave his name and asked for the grey-haired boy’s in return. It was only when he received his answer that he understood the full extent of his memory loss, and realised that he might not be able to help after all.

“That’s just it – I don’t remember anything. No name, no family, no home.” Marshall opened his mouth to respond but closed it after realising there was nothing he could say to that. “Marshall,” the stranger started again, snatching his attention. “Just… Next time you see me, forget we’ve met before. Stay away from me. It’s probably best for both of us.”  
With that, he folded up his stolen newspaper and staggered away, his every movement stiff and rigid like that of a shambling corpse, and Marshall hoped that he never set eyes on him again.


End file.
